I was once asked, by a friend who was not religious, why the Church required us to ‘forgive everyone’. How was it fair that you could just say sorry, and it would all be forgotten and wiped away?
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The Catholic Church in England and Wales welcomes the Report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse relating to the institutional response of the Church in its duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. We thank the IICSA Panel for their work. The Report will now inform the ongoing reform and improvement of safeguarding in all aspects of the Church’s life.
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New restrictions, announced on 31 October and set to come into force from Thursday 5 November, state that “places of worship will be closed” with exceptions for funerals, broadcast acts of worship, individual prayer, essential voluntary public services, formal childcare, and some other exempted activities. These restrictions will once again make participation in the celebration of Mass unlawful.
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A month ago, the system for organ donation changed from ‘opt-in’ to ‘deemed consent’, otherwise known as ‘opt-out’. The Catholic Church is a huge supporter in principle of organ donation, but this move has caused concern.
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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI raised eyebrows around the world when, in a letter to the Church in Poland marking the centenary of the birth of Pope St John Paul II, he pointed to what he sees as a profound thematic unity between the papacies of the Polish Pope and his Argentine successor, Pope Francis.
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In recent weeks, alarming reports have emerged about how groups of vulnerable patients have been asked, via a letter or a phone call by their GP, to sign a Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) notice/order. This has resulted in justified outrage, with family members distraught at the idea their loved one is being asked to ‘sacrifice themselves’ for someone deemed more worthy of treatment, and others claiming it’s ‘legal eugenics made to sound like euthanasia’…
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From the inception of the Government’s efforts to contain COVID-19 by the creation of extraordinary emergency powers and civil contingencies, the abortion lobby have seized the chance to further their agenda of making abortion practice more and more permissive, and undermining the few right-to-life protections for unborn children, and pregnant mothers, that exist in UK law…
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The acquittal of Cardinal George Pell by Australia’s High Court this week was greeted with jubilation by many, and with a mixture of dismay, scorn, and anger by many others; for the former, the unanimous decision to quash all charges against the cardinal was a simple case of justice being done, whereas for the latter it seemed that a powerful man had won out over the pleas of victims.
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In the middle of March this year we were hearing a lot about the COVID-19 virus and its effects abroad, but it all seemed a little academic. Then within the space of about a week, we went from taking more stringent hygiene precautions to being completely unable to attend Mass in our churches. This had a dramatic effect on the life of our parish.
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Hardly had Catholics in England and Wales accepted the new reality of Masses being celebrated behind closed doors than the bishops of England and Wales announced that churches would be closed even outside of service times, preventing the faithful from praying privately there.
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Westminster’s Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said that to help protect priests and people during the coronavirus epidemic, churches in England and Wales are preparing to suspend the celebration of Masses with congregations.
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The news on the weekend that the late Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, had manipulative and abusive sexual relationships with at least six women will have shocked Catholics and others he inspired through his life; if someone who so many thought of as a living saint was not the real deal, then who is?
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There was something ironic in how it was while being interviewed in Salford Cathedral that Rebecca Long-Bailey MP sparked controversy by saying that her Catholicism had helped form her politics and that abortion law in the UK discriminates against the disabled by allowing for the abortion of disabled foetuses right up to birth.
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